Discoveries At Lumbini

You will have heard the news. Archaeologists say they have discovered evidence suggesting that Buddhism may be at least 100 years or more  older than has been  previously thought. This will be not just an interesting but also an important piece of evidence – if it can be verified. All sources agree that the Buddha lived for 80 years but there is wide disagreement about exactly when he was born. From at least as early as the 2^nd century BCE, Sri Lankans have believed that he was born in 624 BCE. This date probably reflects the belief in India at the time Buddhism was introduced into Sri Lanka. Up to now most historians and Indologists have considered this date to be too early. Until recently 563 BCE was thought to be the more likely date of his birth. However, in 1988 an international conference was held at Gottingen University in Germany to review all the evidence pertaining to the Buddha’s  dates and there was wide consensus among scholars that he was born later than 563, perhaps as much as a 100 years later. More research is needed before we can be sure. All the papers read at the conference can be read in Heinz Bechert’s 1995 When Did the Buddha Live?

Of course, uncertainty about the Buddha’s  dates has no bearing on the veracity of his Dhamma. Nonetheless, a certain date would allow us to have a better understanding of the forces that influenced the Buddha’s teaching and how he presented it. I have not read the archaeological report that contains these new findings  and the press  reports of it so far give very few details. The main evidence seems to be this;  that digging under the foundations of the Maha Maya Temple in Lumbini where Prince Siddhattha was born has revealed the remains of what appears to be a tree shrine and wood from this shrine has been carbon 14 dated at aprox. 600 BCE.  Siddhattha’s birth took place under a tree and the assumption is that the actual remains of the tree have been located. There are more than a few problems with these conclusions. Is there any evidence that the tree was worshipped by Buddhists? The tree around which the shrine (if that’s what it is) was built could have been alive for several hundred years before Buddhists started worshiping it. Etc, etc, etc.

Some scientists and researchers nowadays are in the habit of announcing headline-grabbing accounts of their discoveries long before they have actually been confirmed. Before we start getting too excited about these new discoveries let’s wait until the jury is in.  You can read more about the discoveries at  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25088960   

Among The Tombstones

When in London this September I visited Highgate Cemetery, the last resting place of some 170,000 people. Of course  the cemetery’s most famous grave is that of Karl Marx. But    Robert Cesar  Childers’ (died 1876) who compiled the first Pali English dictionary is there somewhere too although I could not find it.  Parts of the cemetery are well maintained but most if it is overgrown and rather spooky. While walking through an overgrown and dark section  my eye was caught by the word Nirvana on one of the partly obscured moss-covered tombstones. Perhaps Calbe Pink (died 1907) was an early Buddhist or Theosophist.

Learn From The Dogs

The 15^th century Moroccan Sufi saint Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Jazuli   authored  a wonderful little book of contemplation. While Muslims usually consider dogs to be impure al Jazuli saw them as having many virtues well worth emulating. This is his Ten Attributes of Dogs.  

1. He sleeps only a little at night; a sign of the lovers of God (muhibbin). 2. He never complains of heat or cold; a sign of the patient (sabirin). 3. When he dies, he leaves nothing  which can be inherited from him; a sign of his simplicity (zahidin). 4. He is neither angry nor hateful; a sign of the faithful (mu’minin). 5. He does not  mourn  the loss of a close relative, nor does he accept assistance; a sign of the secure (muqinin). 6. He is happy with whatever is given to him; a sign of the contented (qani’in). 7. He has no place to live; this is a sign of the wanderers (sa’ihin). 8. He sleeps  anywhere; this is a sign of the easily satisfied (radiyin). 9. Once he knows his master, he never despises him, even if he beats or starves him; a sign of the true knowers (’arifin). 10. He is always hungry; a sign of the virtuous (salihin).    

A Recollection On Peace

I sit now before the Buddha and contemplate that by seeing the aggregates as empty He attained great peace. It is His unmoved stillness and sorrowless compassion that shall be my inspiration. Those who are angry at injustice, impatient for change, despairing at tragedy, elated today and depressed tomorrow, are soon exhausted. But those whose minds are always still and who abide in peace, are abundant in energy. They, like the Buddha, are islands of peace in a sea of turmoil and a refuge to all beings.

Therefore, I will seek peace and quiet, avoiding always the loud, the noisy and those who wish to argue.
I will strive to restore harmony to those who are at odds.   
I will speak without abuse or harshness, gentle always, with words sweet and true.          
I will strive to be conciliatory and yielding, and never be a source of conflict for others.
May all who live in turmoil find the peace they long for.   
May my heart be free from agitation of defilements.          
May my abiding in peace help in the freeing of the heart.

Crazy Wisdom Or Just Crazy?

Crazy wisdom (yeshe cholba) is a concept in Tibetan Buddhism asserting that a teacher may have reached a level of development whereby his/her  behaviour  appears highly unconventional or even immoral to others and that he/she  may  use such behaviour to jolt or shock their disciples  into higher states of spirituality. Something like this has existed in several religions;  being a fool for Christ as described in the Bible (1 Corinthians 1.18; 3,19; 4.10) and the  clownish but wise figure of  Chee Kong in the Chinese Buddhist/Taoist tradition would be examples of this. There are even suggestions of something approaching it in Tipitaka. Verse 501 of the Theragatha says “Let one with sight be as though blind, and one who hears be as though deaf, let one with tongue be as though dumb, let one who is strong be as though weak.” The Buddha said that if you do not retaliate to another person’s anger, those who do not appreciate the Dhamma will think you are a bala, i.e. a fool (S.I,162).

However, the individual whose innocent and simple holiness is misunderstood and mocked by the majority is one thing, the articulate  worldly-wise teacher who cleverly explains and justifies his  unconventional  or wreakless behaviour  another altogether. The most well-known exponent of crazy wisdom in recent times was Chogyam Trungpa. While Trungpa was clearly a dynamic and brilliant individual he made a terrible mess of his own  life with his abusive sexual behaviour, drug taking and alcoholism, and caused a great deal of distress to others.      

The idea of crazy wisdom presents  several serious problems as far as Buddhism is concerned. It renders indistinct the boundary between morality and immorality. It raises the suspicion that those who indulge in it are not really wise but are just trying to rationalizing or excuse behaviour that in other context would be unacceptable, immoral or even illegal. It leads to hypocrisy in that crazy wisdom proponents such as Trungpa insist that their students should not emulate their behaviour. In Trungpa’s case, at one point, when his alcoholism became really serious, he admitted himself into a rehab clinic to dry out and recover. Significantly, he did not apply to himself all the supposedly profound meditational and psychological techniques that he had been teaching to others. Surely this alone has to raise some doubts about the legitimacy of crazy wisdom. 

But for me the most serious problem with the concept of crazy wisdom is its dependence on the assumption that the teacher is ipso facto enlightened or at least highly developed. This assumption depends entirely on the acceptance of certain beliefs; e.g. in the Tibetan tradition that the teacher is supposedly the reincarnation of a great teacher of the past, in India on the traditional assertion that gurus have mystical powers and that surrender to them is the key to spiritual advancement. Like all such assumptions and assertions these ones are not open to critical examination but have to be taken on faith.

Jagaddala Rediscovered

Several bronze-made Gautama Buddha sculptures and some other artefacts, including an ancient brick-built structure with a lotus-shaped inflorescence have been found recently during an excavation at Jagaddala Budhha Bihar archaeological site,   some sixty five kilometers away from Naogaon in Bangladesh. Though many Buddhist monasteries  have been discovered in the country, all of them were square or geometrical in shape, only this one is shaped like a lotus inflorescence, said archaeologists. Mahbub Ul Alam, one of the members of the excavation team and custodian of Paharpur Buddha Bihar Archaeological Museum said that some rare sculptures of Gautama Buddha were found, including some ancient brick, granite and black stone built structures and four cells of Buddhist monastery have been found in an excavation at Jagaddala Bihar recently. “They also found precious stones, ornamental stone pieces, ancient brick staircases and broken earthen pots”, he said. The structure was built in the 10^th or 11^th  centuries during Pala dynasty. “The locals had their doubts about the authenticity of the Jagaddala Bihar. We are now sure that this is the original Jagaddala Vihara”, he said. He  added, “It is a rare discovery for our country.”  
Jagaddala Mahavihara was a Buddhist monastery founded by the later kings of the Pala dynasty, possibly Rampala (1077-1120), most likely at a site near the present village of Jagaddal in Dhamurhat Upazila in the north-west Bangladesh on the border of India, near Paharpur.

Little is known about Jagaddala compared with the other mahaviharas of the era such as Nalanda. For many years, its site could not be ascertained. AKM Zakaria inspected five likely locations, all called Jagddal or Jagadal, in the Rajshahi-Malda region- namely Panchagarh, Haripur upazila in Thakurgaon, Bochaganj upazila in Dinajpur, Dhamoirhat  in Naogaon, and Bamongola of Malda in India. Of these, significant ancient ruins were present only near Jagddal. Excavations under UNESCO over the past decade have established the site as  the once famous  Buddhist monastery.

A large number of  monasteries  were established in ancient Bengal and Magadha during the four centuries of Pala rule in north-eastern India (756-1174 AD). Dharampala (781 – 821) is said to have founded 50 viharas himself, including Vikramshila, the premier university of the era. Jagaddala was founded toward the end of the Pala dynasty, most likely by Ramapala (1077-1120). According to Tibetan sources, five great mahaviharas stood out, Vikramshila, Nalanda, Somapura, Odantapura and Jagaddala. The five monasteries formed a network under state supervision. Jagaddala specialized in Vajrayana Buddhism. A large number of texts that would later appear in the Kanjur and Tenjur were known to have been composed or copied at Jagaddala. It is likely that the earliest dated anthology of Sanskrit verse, the Subhasitaratnakosa, was compiled by Vidyakara at Jagaddala toward the end of the  11^th  or the beginning of the  12^th centuries. Sakyasribhadra, a Kashmiri scholar who was the last abbot of Nalanda Mahavihara and instrumental in transmitting Buddhism to Tibet, is said to have fled to Tibet in 1204 from Jagaddala when Muslim incursions seemed imminent. Historian Sukumar Dutt tentatively placed the final destruction of Jagadala to 1207; in any case it seems to have been the last mahavihara to be overrun.  In 1999, Jagaddala was submitted as a tentative site for inclusion on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. UNESCO reported that the excavation has revealed an extensive mound, 105 meters by 85 meters, which represents the archaeological remains of a Buddhist monastery. The findings have included terracotta plaques, ornamental bricks, nails, a gold ingot and three stone images of deities.

From News Network Archaeology  

A Contribution To the Same-sex Marriage Debate

In 1909  Lord Curzon wrote a tract called Fifteen Good Reasons Against The Grant Of Female Suffrage. Curzon was a conservative man but he was no doddering aristocrat. Far from it, he was a respected senior minister in the British government, Viceroy of India for two terms, a writer and an explorer who had been awarded the Royal Geographic Society’s gold medal for his discovery of the source of the Oxus. The opinions he expressed in his tract were shared by the majority of educated men, and many women too, at the beginning on the 20^th century. Nineteen years later the Representation of the People Act (1928) gave all women the vote. One wonders what the arguments being used against same-sex marriage, curiously similar to Curzon’s, will sound like to our ears nineteen years from now. “Traditional values” are amorphous things and they can have a very brief shelf life. Reason 1.  “Political activity will tend to take women away from her proper sphere and highest duty, which is maternity.”  Reason II. “It will tend by the divisions it will introduce to break up the harmony of the home.” In other word, allowing women to vote will lead to the breakdown of the family. Reason III. “The grant of the vote to women cannot possibility stop short at  a restricted franchise on the basis of a property or other qualification…Its extension to them would pave the way to Adult Suffrage. There is no permanent or practical halting-stage before.” At present only people earning a certain level of income and  owning  property  valued   above a certain amount can  vote. If we enfranchise women everyone will start demanding it - labourers, tradesmen, farmers, etc.  It is a slippery slope. Reason IV. “Women have not, as a sex or a  class, the calmness of temperament or the  balance of mind, nor have they the training necessary, to qualify them to exercise a weighty judgement in political affairs.” Woman are psychologically unsuitable to be given this responsibility. Reason VIII. “The presence of a large number of females in the constituencies returning a British government to power would tend to weaken Great Britain in the estimation of foreign powers. Reason IX. “It would be gravely misunderstood and become a source of weakness in India.” In short,  if women were given the vote it will  weaken the social and political order and perhaps even threaten the Empire. Reason X. “The vote once given, it would be impossible to stop at this. Women would then demand the right to become MP’s, Cabinet Ministers, Judges, etc. Nor could the demand be logically stopped.” It will open the floodgates for them to demand other even more undesirable rights. Reason XIV. “The intellectual emancipation of women is proceeding, and will continue to do so, without the enjoyment of political franchise. There is no necessary connection between the two.” Don’t they already have enough?   Reason XV. “No precedent exists for giving women as a class an active share in the government of a great country or empire, and it is not for Great Britain, whose stake is the greatest, and in whose case the result of failure would be the most tremendous, to make the experiment.” There is no precedent for this move and we have no idea what the consequences of it will be.